# Visibility in Perplexity, ChatGPT and Claude

German title: Sichtbarkeit in Perplexity, ChatGPT und Claude

> According to their documentation, OpenAI, Perplexity and Anthropic separate crawlers for training, search and user-initiated fetches. For appearing in search features, OpenAI recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot and Perplexity recommends allowing PerplexityBot. User-initiated fetches do not always follow robots.txt.

Manfred Sulzmann: “Perplexity and ChatGPT are not classic search engines—they are citation engines. Your content must be citable.”

## Facts

- **OpenAI:** GPTBot (training), OAI-SearchBot (search), ChatGPT-User
- **Perplexity:** PerplexityBot (search), Perplexity-User
- **Anthropic:** ClaudeBot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot

## Crawlers at a glance

Documented crawlers (as of 24 Oct 2026)Provider Bot Purpose per provider robots.txt
OpenAI GPTBot Content that may be used to train foundation models Disallow signals: do not use for training
OpenAI OAI-SearchBot Appearing in ChatGPT search features Allowing recommended; takes about 24 h to adjust
OpenAI ChatGPT-User Fetch on user request robots.txt rules may not apply
Perplexity PerplexityBot Show and link sites in Perplexity search results Allowing recommended; not used for training
Perplexity Perplexity-User Fetch on user request generally ignores robots.txt
Anthropic ClaudeBot Content that may contribute to training Disallow possible
Anthropic Claude-User / Claude-SearchBot Fetch on user request / improving search quality Disabling via robots.txt possible

## What blocking does

OpenAI: Blocking OAI-SearchBot keeps a site out of ChatGPT search answers, though it can still appear as a navigational link; the bot settings are independent of each other. Anthropic: disabling Claude-User or Claude-SearchBot prevents retrieval or indexing for search. Anthropic advises against blocking IP addresses because the bots must read robots.txt.

## Not verified

The bot pages change; the status is 24 October 2026.

## Sources

- OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers (primary source)
- Perplexity Docs: Crawlers (primary source)
- Anthropic Support: Does Anthropic crawl data from the web? (primary source)

Checked on: 24 October 2026.

## Questions

### Should I block GPTBot?

That is a training decision: according to OpenAI, Disallow signals that content should not be used to train foundation models. According to OpenAI, visibility in ChatGPT search depends on OAI-SearchBot.

### Does Perplexity respect robots.txt?

PerplexityBot yes (recommendation: allow). According to Perplexity, Perplexity-User generally ignores robots.txt because users trigger the fetch.

### How many sources does Perplexity cite per answer?

No verified figure is available.

## Related

- [What is AEO? Answer engine optimization explained](https://munichmedia.com/reports/was-ist-aeo.md)
- [Google AI Overviews: what Google documents](https://munichmedia.com/reports/google-ai-overviews.md)
- [JavaScript and crawlers: content in the first HTML](https://munichmedia.com/reports/aeo-crawler-javascript.md)
- [Systems with and without web search](https://munichmedia.com/reports/aeo-multi-model-oekosystem.md)

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